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Yesterday the governor made requisition on the Utah authorities for the extradition of Harry Morgan and Jane Doe, alias “The Candy Kid,” whose true name is unknown. They are charged by Anton Fritz of Portland with larceny from the person. Fritz claims he was robbed about 12 o’clock on the night of Saturday, August 28th, last, of $9,400 near the white temple in Portland. His statement has since been denied but Joe Day now claims he has the guilty parties under arrest at Salt Lake City and will bring them back to Oregon for trial. He claims to have located $4,500 of the stolen money in a safe deposit vault in Chicago.

— Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), October 3, 1906

She was huddled in the shadows of the covered entryway to the First Baptist Church (The White Temple) in downtown Portland, Oregon, crying loud enough to attract his attention. Anton Fritz went up the church steps and asked her what was wrong. She told him her husband had run off with all their worldly goods, leaving her and their baby with nothing. She said she was going to kill herself. Her tale tugged at his heartstrings, so he gave her a few dollars. Overwhelmed by his generosity she gave him a hug. They parted and he continued on his way, not realizing that his pocket had been picked until he arrived at his lodgings. This was one reported version of how Anton was robbed.

White Temple Baptist Church Portland, OR

Another, more unsavory, story was that Anton was drunk and the woman picked him up and took him to a “secluded spot” where she robbed him.

The third account was that Anton offered to get her a room for the night at the hotel where he was lodging. She gratefully accepted and the next morning he discovered his money was gone.

The woman robber was dubbed “The Candy Kid,” and along with Harry Morgan — the man described as her partner in the caper — she was said to have fled Portland with $9,400 (over $260,000 in 2018) of Anton’s money.

Born in Germany in 1848, Anton Fritz and his wife, Johanna, arrived in the United States in 1881. They settled in Smithton, Pennsylvania, where Anton made his living as a butcher. One day he discovered skunks feeding on the offal near his slaughterhouse. Skunk fur was a hot commodity at the time and he seized on this as a fresh business opportunity. He began to raise skunks and sell their pelts. Anton had 700 skunks at one point and was known locally as “The Skunk Farmer.”

Soon he had enough capital to get into a less odoriferous profession. He moved his wife and six children to Monessen, Pennsylvania, where he invested in real estate, eventually owning three hotels, including one he named “Hotel Fritz.”

Johanna had a stroke and died in 1904, the same year Anton built an opera house in Monessen. The project was a money sink. The opera house and Anton’s other real estate holdings overextended his finances. He was forced to borrow large sums of money and was unable to repay his creditors.

Anton skipped town, taking with him about $18,000 (almost half a million dollars in 2018) in cash. The creditors tried to locate him but were told that he’d returned to his homeland. Deciding it was futile to try to find him in a foreign country, they eventually gave up the chase.

Anton had not left America. He’d headed west to Portland, where he had a younger brother, Fred Fritz, who owned a large saloon on Burnside Street. Anton didn’t trust banks and carried all his cash with him in a leather wallet he kept inside his jacket. He had a bad habit of flashing his cash around at the saloon and this may be what led to the robbery.

Rather than go to the police, who might alert his creditors to the fact that he was still in the country, Anton hired a private eye named Joe Day to try to track down the thieves on the Q.T. The timing was perfect for Joe, who’d just been fired from the Portland Police Department and was in need of a new income stream.

Born in New Orleans in 1851, Joseph Day traveled to the west coast with his family while he was still a babe in arms. He became a Portland cop in 1881 and rose to the rank of detective. He loved being a detective (he named his son William Pinkerton Day) but he had an independent streak that infuriated his superiors. Things came to a head when the chief of police complained to the mayor and police board that Joe and several other detectives were undisciplined, rogue officers who cursed constantly, never informed him of their activities and tolerated criminal activity in Portland. The mayor dismissed him and five other detectives in August 1906, saying that they hadn’t earned their salaries and had to go.

Detective Joe Day

Anton also had a problem with Joe — the detective couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He told the newspapers that Anton’s cash had drawn the attention of two regulars at the Fritz saloon, “The Candy Kid” and her partner, Harry Morgan. He described the pair as “colored criminals” with records in other states and also claimed that Harry was also a “stool pigeon” for the Portland police.

Evenutally the press figured out that the real name of “The Candy Kid” was Leora Worlds. She was also known as Clara, Alice or Laura Adams and Clara Morgan.

Joe put out the word that “The Candy Kid” and Harry had headed east to Chicago, spending lavishly as they traveled. It was rumored that she hired a couple of men in Chicago to kill Harry, but that one of them lost his nerve and instead blabbed to Joe about the plan.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, the police wired Joe that they had arrested the couple. Joe and Fred Fritz went to the Salt Lake City jail but extradition papers mysteriously never arrived from Oregon. A few days later the pair were discharged for lack of evidence.

What happened to the money is a matter of speculation. It was reported that Joe took a bribe of $2000 to get Anton to drop the matter, with Leora and Harry receiving $4500 and whatever cash remained being returned to Anton. The police chief in Salt Lake City went on record that no bribes had been offered under his watch.

However by the time Leora and Harry were released from custody, Anton had completely changed his story. He claimed that his saloon-owner brother, Fred, robbed him with the assistance of Joe and other people he refused to name. He said the tale of Leora and Harry robbing him was a “bluff.”

It was true that Fred Fritz had need for cash. He had a gambling problem that had cost him over $1000 in fines by 1905. He was also fined repeatedly for serving liquor at the vaudeville theater he owned next door to the saloon.

Two months later Anton laid down on the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train in San Fernando, California. The train decapitated him and his head was discovered not far from the tracks. His death was thought to be suicide, though no note was found. A small sum of money, a check and some jewelry were found with his body. His attorney noted that prior to his death Anton was “mentally unbalanced.”

Joe was eventually rehired by the Portland Police Department. He was later reduced to the uniformed ranks but he stayed on and ended his career as a policeman in 1926. He died ten years later in Portland.

Leora was arrested for vagrancy in Portland in 1910. She told the arresting officers she had done no “job.” The news article about her arrest referred to her as “The Candy Kid” and erroneously described her as “one of the star female criminals of the Pacific coast.”

The reason Leora was called “The Candy Kid” remains a mystery to this day. My guess is that Detective Joe Day gave her the nickname. Written on the back of a news copy of her mugshot photo is the notation “DAY,” but precisely why he called her that I can’t say.

Though no one was ever charged with the robbery of Anton Fritz, the rumor that Leora did it continued for at least 30 years.

GRANT’S PASS, Or., Sept. 28.—The body of William Dunlap, an old pioneer and miner, was found near his cabin yesterday. The old man had been shot and evidently murdered, as his cabin had been looted.

Dunlap lived alone on Louse Creek, where he has resided for 30 years past, making his living by working his Placer claim. It has been the supposition that he had considerable gold buried in or near his cabin and it was probably to find this that the old man was murdered. He had been dead four or five days when found and the murderer had ample time to escape. Officers are working on the case, but have not the slightest clew.

— Morning Register (Eugene, Oregon), September 30, 1903

William Dunlap was murdered in September 1903, but it took much longer for police to arrest his killers. The body of the gold miner and Civil War veteran was found in the doorway of his remote cabin near Grants Pass in southern Oregon shortly after he was shot and killed.

It took a year and a half for a teenager named Lloyd Ingram to go to police and admit what he knew about the murder. Andy Ingram, Lloyd’s father had put the fear of god into the young man to keep his mouth shut.

Forty-year-old Andy was the “author of the plot” to kill William. As police had surmised, money was the motive for the crime — Andy believed that William had a stash of gold hidden under the cabin floorboards. To help him carry out the murder he enlisted his 26-year-old cousin, Andrew Dodson.

Grants Pass, Oregon, circa 1915

Andrew had the better people skills of the two men, so he befriended the aged gold miner. After a couple of visits to his cabin by the younger man, William was lulled into believing Andrew was really his friend. On the third visit, Andrew brought his rifle and shot the old man in the chest in cold blood. He joined Andy in the nearby town of Grants Pass to establish an alibi, then they returned to the cabin that night. The pair looted the place, but all they found was $12.

It turned out that William was no fool. He kept the proceeds from his mining labors in the First National Bank of Grants Pass.

Lloyd had overheard his father and Andrew planning the murder. He admitted to Andy that he followed Andrew on the day of the crime and saw him enter William’s cabin with the loaded rifle.

After hearing what his son had to say, Andy forced Lloyd to go to the cabin and search William’s body. Andy thought the shock of seeing the dead body would shut the boy up, and it did. He also convinced him that he’d be implicated in the murder if anyone found out what happened. So Lloyd kept quiet, at least for a while.

By 1905, Lloyd was unable to keep his terrible secret any longer. He went to the police and told them what he knew. Andy and Andrew were arrested.

Andrew admitted he fired the shot that killed William, saying his conscience was bothering him so much that he hoped for the shortest route to the gallows. He got it — he was sentenced to hang on August 11, 1905. But he insisted that it was not he but Andy who had planned the murder.

When one man is the brains behind a murder plot but another man pulls the trigger, who’s the “real criminal” wondered a reporter for a newspaper covering the case.

Andy pleaded not guilty and went to trial. His son’s testimony helped convict him of second-degree murder. He got a life sentence in prison.

Andrew didn’t die on the gallows. There was a public outcry over the decision to hang the shooter while the plotter was allowed to live, so the governor commuted Andrew’s death sentence to life in prison. Due to failing eyesight, he was pardoned in 1915 after serving ten years.

Lloyd developed problems as an adult and became addicted to alcohol, opium and morphine. He went to jail for petty larceny. In 1919 he was committed to the California State Psychiatric Hospital in Stockton.

Andy escaped from the Oregon State Penitentiary in 1918. He was recaptured in 1922 while attempting to burglarize a store in Portland and returned to the penitentiary with time added to his sentence. In 1934, 71-year-old Andy was given a conditional pardon. At some point he was again sent back to the penitentiary (apparently his pardon was revoked) where he died of heart disease in March 1948. No one from his family claimed his cremains and they were buried at the Oregon State Hospital Cemetery.

Featured photo: news photo of undated mugshot of Andy (A.M.) Ingram, alias John Watson. Collection of the author.

Ernest Long, marine engineer, who was arrested last Monday night on a charge of masquerading as a woman on the street, figured as a defendant in two court actions yesterday.

He appeared in Police Judge D.S. O’Brien’s court to answer to the masquerading charge, where he entered a plea of guilty.

The costume which Long wore at the time of his arrest was produced in court. It consisted of frilly lingerie, spiderweb silk stockings, fancy pumps and other feminine attire.

Judge O’Brien continued the case until next Wednesday to gave (sic) Dr. O’Neill further time for observations.

Mrs. Lulu Long, the engineer’s wife, made him a defendant in divorce proceedings in the superior court yesterday afternoon, alleging cruelty.

— San Francisco Chronicle, March 25, 1922

Ernest Long was arrested on March 21, 1922, in San Francisco for dressing in “women’s garb” and for carrying a concealed weapon — a revolver — that police found on him. At the time of his arrest Ernest worked as a marine engineer on the steamship “Rose City,” which traveled between San Francisco and Portland.

Ernest’s wife, Lulu, told police he awakened her in the middle of the night and forced her to help him dress in women’s clothes, then instructed her to go back to bed. Lulu also claimed that Ernest had been dressing as a woman for the past seven years, since their marriage in 1915, and that he only owned one suit of men’s clothing.

“I’m trying to hook up with a vaudeville circuit,” he explained. “But I’m not ready yet. I wouldn’t want any publicity right now.” Seems like an odd comment from a man who spent his life working in male-dominated jobs, including as a machinist, engineer, plumber and sailor.

Unfortunately he got plenty of publicity, when articles about his arrest appeared in newspapers around California and in his native town of Portland, Oregon.

Why was Ernest arrested? In 1863 a law was passed in San Francisco making it a criminal offense for a person to appear in public in “dress not belonging to his or her sex.” The law would remain in place until 1974. San Francisco was not alone — many other American cities also passed laws prohibiting cross-dressing.

Men arrested in 1927 in Los Angeles for cross-dressing. Jesse Brown Cook scrapbook.

Ernest was born into an extremely unusual family. His father, Pon Long, was Chinese and his mother, Selina, was born in England. The couple met in 1877 when Selina worked as a teacher in a private Chinese school in San Francisco. Pon, described as a lawyer and merchant, had immigrated to America in 1869. The couple managed somehow to get a marriage license, despite the anti-miscegenation law in California prohibiting marriage between people of different races. Their marriage, described in the news as a “strange affinity,” shocked San Franciscans.

The Long family spent the next 12 years in Portland, Oregon, where they were tolerated despite the law there against interracial marriage. In 1889, when Ernest was an infant, Pon, Selina and their six children sailed to China. A seventh child, Mabel, was born in Hong Kong in 1892. The family spent years dividing their time between China and America. The children, including Ernest, identified as Caucasian on census and passport documents.

The San Francisco police photographed Ernest in full gear for use as evidence in court, even though the clothes he wore when arrested were submitted as evidence. Unusually for police suspect photos, he looks relaxed, pleased and dreamy-eyed. His legs in their “spiderweb silk stockings” appear heavy and masculine, but his feet are surprisingly petite. It’s probable that he saw bound feet on girls and women while he lived in China. He may have hoped to emulate the look, considered a mark of beauty in China and also thought to be a sexual stimulant for a woman’s male partner.

The 1922 arrest wreaked havoc on Ernest and his family. Lulu filed for divorce and later deserted him, taking their three children with her. However the couple reunited and had five more children, though ultimately, they divorced in the early 1940s.

Ernest died in San Diego, California, 55 years after his arrest for “masquerading as a woman.”